The Correlation Between Students’ Learning Styles And Students’ Writing Achievement

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Linguists: Journal of Linguistics and Language Teaching

http://ejournal.iainbengkulu.ac.id/index.php/linguists

The Correlation Between Students’ Learning Styles And Students’ Writing

Achievement

Okky Leo Agusta

Sriwijaya University, Palembang, Indonesia. okkyprop@gmail.com

Received: 2019 Accepted: 2019 Published: 2019

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to find out the percentages of students’ learning styles and find out the relationship between students’ learning styles and students’ writing achievement. The method was used by this research was correlation research to find out the correlation between two variables. The population of this research was all of the tenth grade students in vocational school Tugumulyo, Musi Rawas, South Sumatera. The sample was otomotive engineering class and the class consisted 31 students. To get students’ learning style, the researcher used learning style inventory with questionnaire and to get students’ writing achievement, the researcher used writing test. Then, the technique for analyzing the data was the percentage calculation and Person Product Moment to find out the correlation between students’ learning style and students’ writing achievement. The findings, the students were 39% visual learning style, 42% Auditory learning style, and 19% Kinesthetic learning style. The coeffecient relationship robtained was -0.280 ( robtained < rtable ), there was no

significant relationship between students’ learning style and students’ writing achievement. Keywords: learning style; writing achievement.

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, the progress of the world is not boundary which is proved by international relationship and the advancement of technology. The progress of the world brings new paradigm that our world is not just silent but the people around the world communicate each other although they are from different hemisphere. English brings its important role in the advancement of the world by its function as international language.

Every country in the world gives more attention in education to master English as an effort to adapt themselves in international level. Especially, Indonesia faces the importance of mastering English as foreign language which must be taught as compulsory subject in formal education. That is an evidence of government which expect the students can master English in its skills.

Writing skill is dominan skill which is used in teaching and learning process. The writing skills are complex and sometimes difficult to teach, requiring mastery not only of

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grammatical and rhetorical devices but also of conceptual and judgemental elements (Heaton, 1988, p. 135). The evidence brings fact that writing is basic classroom ability in studying English. It can be concluded that writing is the most important skill.

Teaching English has much deliberation in increasing English skill to teacher to investigate how English can be received well by student. This is the demand of teacher which must close to the student and get many information of character of student in teaching and learning process. It will give effect to the lesson which is taught by the teacher can be understood well because we should know that students have their learning style. In this understanding, teacher attempts to describe students character in learning and it is a unique perspective while we all exhibit inherently human characters of learning, every individual

approaches a problem or learns a set of facts or organizes a combination of feelings from a

unique perspective (Brown, 2007, p. 118).

How people learn is of interest not only to educators but to everyone, the young and the old, the rich and the poor, scholar and laborer alike all would like to be able to read faster, remember more, think more logically, and perform more creatively (Cornett, 1983, p. 7). In this understanding, teacher should try to find out the most effective learning strategy in classroom teaching based on student learning style and it will investigate specifically the most effective learning strategy based on students’ learning style to the student in English improving skill especially in writing because writing is the dominan skill which is used in classroom teaching whether they are in visual, auditory or kinesthetic learning style.

The influence of developing students’ learning style will affect the physiological aspect of student which is the best way of student in learning. Definitely, developing students’ learning style will increase the students’ achievement. The correlation of developing students’ learning style and students’ achievement brings the researcher to conduct the research are deeper in students’ writing achievement.

Based on the problem above, the researcher was interested to conduct a research entitled “The Correlation between Students’ Learning Style and The Student Writing Achievement to The Tenth Grade Student of vocational school Tugumulyo, Musi Rawas, South Sumatera.

METHOD

This study is correlational research design. According to Kothari (2004, p. 31), research design is the conceptual structure within which research is conducted; it constitutesthe blueprint for the collection, measurement and analysis of data. As such the design includes an outline of what the researcher will do from writing the hypothesis and its operational

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implicationstothe final analysis of data. This research categorizes correlation research. According to Arikunto (2006, p. 4), correlation research is done to know the correlation between two variables.

The Technique of Data Collection

In collecting the data, the researcher used questionnaire to find out students’ learning style and students’ writing test to investigate writing achievement.

Questionnaire

According to Griffee (2012, p. 67), questionnaire is a data-collection instrument that asks respondents for demographic information, opinion or questions of fact. Questionnaires typically ask respondents to quantify their answer by circling a number (say, one to five) thereby providing numerical data that can be statistically analyzed. Alternatively, questionnaire items may be open ended and provide qualitative data.

In this research, questionnaire was used to know the students’ learning style. The questionnaire consisted of 24 question which is adapted from Barsch Learning Style Inventory by Jeffrey Barsch, Ed.D., & Sensory Modality Checklist by Nancy A. Raynie. There was 24 statements with three options in the questionnire i.e. “often” which was scored 5, “sometimes’’ which was scored 3and “seldom’’ which was scored 1 . It meant the higest score was 40 and the lowest score was 8. Those 24 statements consisted 3 sub variables. They were visual learning style which consisted of 8 statements, audio learning style which consisted of 8 statements, and kinesthetic learning style consisted of 8 statements.

Writing Test

According Richard (2010) states that a test designed to measure how much of a language learners have successfully learned with specific reference to a particular course, textbook, or programme of instruction. In this research, the researcher investigated students’ writing achievement by giving writing test of recount text to the tenth grade students. In writing test, the students had been given the topic about “unforgettable experience’’ which it should be written into three paragraphs of orientation, series of event and re-orientation. This writing test was relate to tenth grade students’ English syllabus.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS Students’ Learning Style

The scores referred to the responses of the sample to the students’ learning style questionnaire with checklist scoring in three options are “often” which is scored 5,

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Visual Auditory Kinesthetic

“sometimes’’ which is scored 3 and “seldom’’ which is scored 1. After the scores were tabulated, it was found that the higest score of students’ learning style was 90 and the lowest score of students’ learnings tyle was 68 and the researcher classified students’ learning style in visual, auditory and kinesthetic. In visual learning style was found the higest score of visual learning style was 82 and the lowest score of visual learng style was 70, the higest score of auditory learning style was 84 and the lowest score of auditory learning style was 68 and the higest score of kinesthetic learning style was 90 and the lowest score of kinesthetic learning style was 70.

The students classification of students’ learning style was found in visual learning style by 12 students (38.70 %), auditory learning style by 13 students (41.93 %) and kinesthetic learning style by 6 students (19.35 %).

Chart 1.

The Students’ Percentage Qualification Students' Learning Style

Students’ Writing Achievement

The data of students’ writing achievement referred to students’ score of writing test which was given by researcher and scored by two raters and the individual students score was calculated by adding the writing score of two rater and devided by 2.

The scoring of writing test was analized by five criteria, they were; (Heaton, 1988) 1) content; the clear content of composition and showing knowledge of subject, 2) organization; fluent expression, integration of paragraph by paragraph, and sentence by sentence, 3) vocabulary, choice and usage appropriate idiom or word, 4) language use; construction of rules of the sentence or appropriate grammatical, 5) mechanic; mastery of spelling, punctuation, capitalization and paragraphing. The scores were obtained by adding the result

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42% Passed

58%

of rater I and the rater II devided by 2. After being analyzed, the researcher obtained the highest score, the lowest score, and the average score of students’ writing achievement.

The highest score of students’ writing achievement was 88, the lowest score of students’ writing achievement was 60 and the average of students’ writing achievement was 72.96 (73). Based on the English Minimum Mastery Criteria which was 70, there were 13 students (41.93%) who failed the English Minimum Mastery Criteria and there was 18 students (58.07%) who passed the English Minimum Mastery Criteria.

Chart 2.

Students’ Writing Achievement

Normality Testing

In statistics, normality test are used to determine whether a data is well-modeled by a normal distribution or not, or to compute how likely an underlying variable is to be normally distributed and in this research normality data will be measured in the obtained data of writing test. To test the data of normality sometimes followed in inferential statistic to be one or more sample in a group. According to Sugiyono (2013, p. 107), the data of normality become an assumption to get the hands of statistical in order to analysis the next data. The investigation of students’ writing achievement score, the interval consistency normal was estimated by Chi-Square formula:

χ

2

=

( ) Where: χ2 = Chi-Square Oi = Observed Frequency Ei = Expected Frequency

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According to Sugiyono (2013, p. 109), to determine the normality which normal or not namely, if χ2

obtained < χ2 table, therefore the data is “normal”, while if χ2 obtained > χ2 table, therefore the data is “not normal”.

The normality data test of learning score with the higest was 90 and the lowest score was 68 to calculate the class interval or the long class and determine degree of freedom the normality data test of students’ learning style score. The researcher had written the steps in calculating normality data test (See appendix 6) and the researcher found out that χ2 obtained = 2.15 with degree of freedom (df) = 3 ( 4-1). Since level is 5% (0.05), and the χ2 table = 7.82. It could be concluded that the data of students’ learning score was normal because χ2 obtained < χ2

table.

The researcher found the higest score of writing achievement was 88 and the lowest score was 60 to calculate the class interval or the long class and determine degree of freedom the normality data test of students’ writing achievement. The researcher had written the steps in calculating normality data test and the researcher found out that χ2 obtained = 4.64 with degree of freedom (df) = 4 ( 5-1). Since level is 5% (0.05), and the χ2 table = 9.49. It could be concluded that the data of students’ writing achievement was normal because χ2

obtained < χ2 table.

Corelation between Students’ Learning Style and Students’ Writing Achievement The students classification of students’ learning style was found in visual learning style by 12 students, auditory learning style by 13 students and kinesthetic learning style by 6 students. The correlation of each students’ learning style used Pearson Product Moment Formula. The correlation between visual students’ learning style and students’ writing achievement was calculated and was shown by following chart:

Chart 3.

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The calculation and chart 5, above showed that the correlation coefficient (r obtained) was -0.280 at the significant level of two variables 0.05 or 5% in two tail test with degree of freedom (df) = 29 (31-2), the critical value of (rtable) was 0.367. Since the value of robtained was lower than rtable (0.280<0.367), it meant that Ho was accepted and Ha was rejected or there was no significant relationship between students’ learning style and the students’ writing achievement to the tenth grade students.

DISCUSSION

The researcher had analyzed the result of correlation between students’ learning style and students’ writing achievement and it was found that there was no significant relationship between students’ learning style and students’ writing achievement. The researcher had analyzed the result of students’ visual learning style, auditory learning style and kinesthetic learning style with the students’ writing achievement.

The visual students’ learning style was identified by researcher to 12 students (38,70%). The total score of visual learning style was 838. It was the higest score of learning style questionnaire . It concluded generally the students were disposed to have visual learning style characters who had preference for seen or observed things in their media of learning by choosing number 2,3,7,10,14,16,19, and 22 of learning style questionnaire. It was diffrent evidence which was in individual learning style classification, the students were most in auditory learning style who were 13 students.

The auditory students’ learning style was 13 students (41,93%). The total score of auditory learning style was 799. It was lower score than visual learning style score. The students were disposed to have auditory learning style characters in choosing number 1,5,8,11,13,18,21, and 24 of learning style questionnaire although the total score was lower than visual learning style score, the individual classifications were most in auditory learning style who were 13 students.

The kinesthetic students’ learning style was 6 students (19,35%). The total score of kinesthetic learning style was 764. It was the lowest score of learning style. It concluded the students was disposed to have visual learning style character in choosing number 4,6,9,12,15,17,20, and 23 of learning style questionnaire. The score showed the lowest score and the individual classifications of learning style were 6 students.

The writing test showed the students’ preference in choosing “Personal Diary” topic in writing test which was 26 students (83,37%) and the students choose “Last Holiday” in their

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writing topic with 5 students (16,12%). In the other side, there was no students who choose “Experience in Joining Extracurricular”.

The correlation between students’ learning style and students’ writing achievement was shown by the correlation coefficient robtained was lower than rtable (0.280<0.367), it meant that Ho was accepted and Ha was rejected or there was no significant relationship between students’ learning style and the students’ achievement or it could be concluded the correlation between students’ learning style and students’ achievement was low correlation category with robtained = 0.347 (0.20-0.399) (Sugiyono, 2013, p. 231).

Visual Lerning style has a prefence for seen or observed thing (Chislett, 2005, p. 5). In writing test, the students should write a recount text based on their experience which they had seen or observed, it was encouraged by visual learning style character but the correlational coeffecient which had been found are not significant. It meant visual learning style was not affect to students’ writing achievement in recount text writing test or it was lower correlation. Auditory learning style prefered to hear information ( Covil, 2011, p. 2), the writing test was focused in the students’ experience directly was not receiving a story from someone or indirectly. It meant auditory learning style was not encourage relationship characters to students’ writing achievement in recount text and the correlation coeffecient was not significant or it was low correlation.Kinesthetic learning style were people like to experiment (Chislett, 2005, p. 5). It meant this learning style character was encourage the writing test in recount text which should write students experience in their experiment of their past event but the coeffecient correlation was not significant or low correlation to relationship of students’ kinesthetic learning style and students’ recount text writing.

The discussion above, it is clear that students’ learning styles do not give significant effect to the students’ writing achievement or writing achievement was not affected significantly by students’ learning style in. There were other factors which affected to students’ writing achievement such as students’ learning strategy, students’ learning motivation and students’ language skills. The theoretical of learning styles encouraged the learning styles would affect the writing achievement and the result of this research was not significant correlation, it could be caused by the students were not serious doing the tests and the obtained data did not present the characters of their learning style and the ability of their writing achievement.

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Limitation of The Research

In this research, there were many weaknesses related to the finding of the research. The weaknesses were:

1. The number of students involved as sample in this research was actually very small, as it was only one class taken as the sample. It was so limited representation of the population and it should be better if there were more than 31 students as sample of the research.

2. Students’ learning style in this reserach was only focused on students’ writing achievement. Thus, it was actually not enough to show the correlation students learning style to the other language skills.

3. During this research, the researcher gave the questionnaire first, after that the researcher gave writing test. It was be an obstacle of the researcher to control the students to be seriouse to both of instruments.

4. In doing this research, the researcher did not spend more than one month or it is limited time of the duration doing this research. Thus, the data could have weeknesses in describing the students’ progress in students’ learning style and students’ writing achievement.

5. In collecting the data by using questionnaire, the students could answer the questionnaire honestly and could be confused because the unclear direction in answering the questionnaire.

6. In collecting the data of the writing achievement, it was limited because it was only focussed in recount text writing test. It was limited representation the students’ writing achievement.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

Based on the findings and discussions which is present in the previous chapter, it can be concluded that there is no significant relationship between students’ learning style and the students’ writing achievement to the tenth grade students of vocational school tugumulyo, Musi Rawas, South Sumatera. The students classification of students’ learning style is found at visual learning style by 12 students (38.70 %), auditory learning style by 13 students (41.93 %) and kinesthetic learning style by 6 students (19.35 %).

The obtained coeffecient correlation is lower than table coeffecient correlation. It shows that students’ learning style did not give significantly effect to students’ writing achievement. Based on the calculation, each coeffecient correlation of students’ learning style is lower than

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table coeffecient correlation. The hypothesis conclusion of each correlation, Ho is accepted and Ha is rejected. It meant that there is no significant correlation between students’ learning style and students’ writing achievement to the tenth grade students of vocational school Tugumulyo, Musi Rawas, South Sumatera.

Based on the evidence during this research, the researcher would like to offer some suggestion:

1. To students

Students should try to find out the dominant learning style and improve the learning style to get the better achievement in writing recount text. Students should increase the vocabulary mastery and grammar of simple past tense because the debility of student writing element is vocabulary and the grammar is used in recount text writing is simple past tense.

2. To teachers

Teachers should try to find out the dominant learning style in the class to determine the most suitable learning media to students’ learning style. Teacher should often give writing assigment to students. It would make students always practice their writing skill. 3. To other researchers

It is suggested that the other researchers can continue the other researches on the correlation of students’ learning style and the other students’ language skill such as listening, speaking and reading.

REFERENCES

Arikunto, S. (2006). Prosedur penelitian suatu pendekatan praktik. Jakarta: Rineka Cipta. Brown, H. D. (2007). Principles of language learning and teaching. New York, NY: Pearson

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Chislet. (2005) .VAK-learning style assesment. Retrieved From: www.bussinessball.com on November 25th 2014.

Cornett, C. (1983). Why you should know about teaching and learning style. Bloomington: IN Phi Delta Kappa.

Covil. (2011). Learning styles and learning styles inventory. London: Hudderfield

Griffee, D. T. (2012). An introduction second language research methods. United State of America : TESL-TJ Publications.

Heaton, J. B. (1988). Writing English language test. London: Longman.

Kothari, C. R. (2004). Research methodology. New Delhi: New Age International Publisher. Richard, J. C. (2010). Longman dictionary of applied linguistics. Harlow, Essex: Longman

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